Marginal Revolution

How to run a successful blog

...They understand that public opinion matters...they understand that it’s a little harder to criticize someone after you’ve met him and he’s given you free cookies...they couldn't possibly have expected to change anybody’s mind, they understand that it’s better to talk to your critics than to avoid them. Waldman talks about some of the techniques used to make the attendees [readers] feel like they were being treated as special guests.

Whoops!  That's not advice for running a successful blog.  Those are James Kwak's comments on how Treasury tries to trick visiting bloggers.  We bloggers should know.  We give away lots of free stuff too, more than cookies even if it is sometimes sour rather than sweet.

Assorted links

1. More lessons from the VHA.

2. Net use does not lead to social isolation.

3. IQ predicts portfolio diversification, at least in Finland.

4. Finish time variation in marathons, across time and across Boston and New York.

5. What your phone might do for you two years from now.

6. John Cassidy on the health care bill.

Talks at TEDx Midatlantic

The talks are here, including one by yours truly on the limits of story-based thinking.  I was happy to meet Sonja Sohn.  One thing I learned from this experience is that if you follow professional entertainers, the "status rub-off" effect dominates the "suffer by comparison" effect.  The audience is primed to be sympathetic to you and many of them do not actually know which of the speakers are truly the high status people.  Perhaps the talk has to meet some minimum quality standard, or involve some minimum level of self-confidence, for the rub-off effect to hold.

Addendum: Arnold Kling comments.

Impressions from Treasury

I will enumerate a few (you can trace other accounts here):

1. Tim Geithner is very smart and he was conceptually stronger than one might have expected.

2. I believe that the long, L-shaped hallways encourage "visits to offices" rather than hallway conversations; this is a speculation and perhaps some reader can confirm or deny it.

3. The quality of the painted portraits of Treasury Secretaries declines as time passes.

4. The free cookies were good and fresh, with a warm, fluid chocolate interior.  There was water to drink, but no mineral water.

5. For all their talk about outreach, etc. I believe at least a few of them wanted to hear from an outside source whether we think they are totally ****ed or not.  They heard. 

6. I worry less than did some of the other bloggers about the Treasury awareness of major economic problems going forward.  As governmental institutions go, Treasury has a real incentive to a) worry about the fiscal future, and b) worry about worst-case scenarios, including for financial institutions.  Their daily interaction with the bond market gives them a longer time horizon and a more economics-friendly perspective than most of their bureaucratic counterparts.  The problem is Congress.  For instance if someone at Treasury had a Yves Smith view of the banking system, they could not much act on it.

7. "You guys are a welcome change of pace," or something like that, remarked one senior Treasury official.  Although this was flattery, I believe it was meant sincerely.  They were also a welcome change of pace.

8. I asked one senior Treasury official which book, thinker, or economic theorist had most shaped his thinking about the financial crisis.  In the ensuing discussion the book Lords of Finance was recommended, though I could not say whether it was intended as a totally direct answer to the question as stated.

*You Are What You Choose*

Scott DeMarchi and James T. Hamilton have a new book out and the subtitle is The Habits of Mind That Really Determine How We Make Decisions.  I take this to be the key paragraph:

It's called fast food, but your decision-making process in ordering a chicken sandwich can be incredibly complex.  In the following section, we describe six core habits of mind that affect how you make decisions in all areas of your life.  We call these TRAITS: Time, Risk, Altruism, Information, meToo, and Stickiness.

Here is a review and explication of the book.